BOEMRE makes decision this March for Seismic Blasting U.S. East Coast. Billions spent for blasting mean future drilling (in addition to over 100,000 dead dolphins from the blasting alone). ------------------------------------------------------------- Gulf Of Mexico Ecosystem In Crisis 3 Years After BP Oil Spill: link: theoldspeakjournal.wordpress/2013/10/21/were-seeing-things-weve-never-seen-before-everything-out-there-is-dead-gulf-of-mexico-ecosystem-in-crisis-3-years-after-bp-oil-spill/#comments October 21, 2013 There is no safe way to drill for the toxic waste that is crude oil in ocean ecosystems. Corporate media has turned a blind eye to this ongoing disaster in the Gulf of Mexico while a major ocean ecosystem, depended on financially by mulitiple U.S. gulf states, is slowly and surely dying. Ignore the BP produced propaganda films crowing about how the gulf’s beaches are open, and its seafood is safe, and how stringent their safety protocols and new drilling technologies are. It’s all bullshit. Tar and oil is still washing up on beaches, fish and wildlife stocks have plummeted, some are just gone & fishing commerce has ground to near halt. No signs of recovery in sight. We power our civilization on toxic wastes. Where ever these toxins are extracted, spilled, released or disposed of, death and destruction follows. Without exception. We are losing 200 species of biodiversity per day. This is not sustainable. “It’s disturbing what we’re seeing,” Louisiana Oyster Task Force member Brad Robin said. “We don’t have any more baby crabs, which is a bad sign. We’re seeing things we’ve never seen before.” Robin, a commercial oyster fisherman who is also a member of the Louisiana Government Advisory Board, said that of the sea ground where he has harvested oysters in the past, only 30 percent of it is productive now. “We’re seeing crabs with holes in their shells, other seafood deformities. The state of Louisiana oyster season opened on October 15, and we can’t find any production out there yet. There is no life out there.” According to Robin, entire sectors of the Louisiana oyster harvest areas are “dead or mostly dead”. “I got 10 boats in my fleet and only two of them are operating, because I don’t have the production to run the rest. We’re nowhere near back to whole, and I can’t tell you when or if it’ll come back.” Robin is not the only member of the Gulf’s seafood industry to report bleak news. Kathy Birren and her husband own Hernando Beach Seafood, a wholesale seafood business, in Florida. “I’ve seen a lot of change since the spill,” Birren said. “Our stone crab harvest has dropped off and not come back; the numbers are way lower. Typically you’ll see some good crabbing somewhere along the west coast of Florida, but this last year we’ve had problems everywhere.” Birren said the problems are not just with the crabs. ”We’ve also had our grouper fishing down since the spill,” she added. “We’ve seen fish with tar balls in their stomachs from as far down as the Florida Keys. We had a grouper with tar balls in its stomach last month. Overall, everything is down.” According to Birren, many fishermen in her area are giving up. ”People are dropping out of the fishing business, and selling out cheap because they have to. I’m in west-central Florida, but fishermen all the way down to Key West are struggling to make it. I look at my son’s future, as he’s just getting into the business, and we’re worried.” Dean Blanchard, owner of a seafood business in Grand Isle, Louisiana, is also deeply troubled by what he is seeing. ”We have big tar mats coming up on Elmers Island, Fouchon, Grand Isle, and Grand Terre,” Blanchard said. “Every time we have bad weather we get fresh tar balls and mats.” Blanchard said his business generates only about 15 percent of what it did before the spill. ”It looks like it’s getting worse,” he said. “I told my wife when she goes to the mall she can only spend 15 percent what she used to spend.” Blanchard has also seen shrimp brought in with deformities, and has taken photographs of shrimp with tumours (see article in link). Others lack eyes. As far away from the blowout site as Florida, researchers continue to find oil in both Tampa Bay and Sarasota Bay. March through August of this year, over three million pounds of oiled material have been collected in Louisiana, more than double the amount over the same time period last year. In addition, the CPRA reports that “investigations into the chemical composition of MC252 [BPs Macondo well] oil samples demonstrate that submerged oil is NOT substantially weathered or depleted of most PAH’s [polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons],” and “disputes findings relied on by the USCG [US Coast Guard] that Deepwater Horizon oil is non-toxic”. The agency also expresses concerns that “submerged oil may continue to pose long term risk to nearshore ecosystems”. “New impacts to the Gulf’s ecosystem and creatures also continue to emerge,” Henderson said. “This year alone, the National Marine Fisheries Service has recorded 212 dolphins and other marine mammal strandings in the northern Gulf [Note: this does not account for the many more that simply fall to the sea bottom when they die. American, British, and Canadian PHds found that for each cetacean body found stranded on the Gulf Coast, that 50 fall to the sea bottom: that would mean about 10,600 have actually died just this past year. Research: -interpreting cetacean carcass recoveries in the context of the DeepwaterHorizon/BP incident ; Rob Williams1 (lead researcher), Shane Gero2, Lars Bejder3, John Calambokidis4, Scott D. Kraus5, David Lusseau6, Andrew J. Read7, Jooke Robbins8 ; onlinelibrary.wiley/.../j.1755-263X.../abstract .] A new scientific study conducted by NOAA, BP and university researchers also shows significant negative impacts on tiny organisms that live on the sea floor in a 57 square mile area around the Deepwater Horizon well site.” Numerous other impacts have been documented since the disaster began, including genetic disruptions for Gulf killifish, harm to deepwater corals, and the die-off of tiny foraminifera that are an important part of the Gulf’s food chain. Ongoing studies continue to reveal toxins from BP’s spill in water, soil, and seafood samples. Meanwhile, fishermen in BP’s impact zone wonder if things will ever return to normal. ”Our future is very, very dim, and there are no sponge crabs out there, which is the future,” Robin concluded. “I’ve never seen this in my lifespan. I’m not seeing a future, because everything out there is dead.”
Posted on: Fri, 24 Jan 2014 02:27:29 +0000
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